Cons:

A curious trend is afoot. Many classic franchises are being resurrected, giving beloved games of the past new leases on life on today's next generation consoles. Ninja Gaiden, Metroid, Mario, Ghosts & Goblins, Zelda... the list of remakes reads like a who's who of classic 8- and 16-bit games. At this year's E3, Sega revealed that Shinobi would be joining this elite crowd, taking the form of a new 3D action title for the PlayStation 2. Developed by OverWorks, Shinobi brings Sega's premier ninja hurtling into a brand new style of 3D gameplay. However, whether or not this is a positive switch from his prior 2D adventures is open to interpretation.

Shinobi follows the exploits of a new ninja, Hotsuma. He's the leader of the Oboro ninja clan, the same clan that spawned prior Shinobi front-man Joe Musashi. It seems Tokyo is all but wrecked after a mysterious-looking castle appeared in its metropolitan center. The castle happens to be the handiwork of a sorcerer called Hiruko, recently resurrected after the seal of his ancient prison was broken. Wasting no time, he's once again trying to use a forbidden spell to plunge the world into darkness, and as warm-up he's summoned hellspawn and murdered the rest of the Oboro clan. As the last of the Oboro, Hotsuma travels into the dark city to confront the evil sorcerer.

Forget All You've Learned

Since it's moved to full 3D, Shinobi plays nothing like its predecessors. Unlike Musashi-sama, new ninja Hotsuma is fast as hell. He can run along walls, double-jump, and dash either across the ground or through the air. While he still carries some shuriken (used to temporarily stun enemies), his main weapon is the sword Akujiki. Akujiki is a cursed weapon that feeds on Yin, the hatred inside men's souls. If its Yin meter empties, Akujiki begins leaching off your lifebar, so it's in your best interests to kill enemies (to harvest their Yin) and run through the stages as quickly as possible. While it might sound annoying, the Yin system is actually well-implemented and brings a welcome bit of urgency to the gameplay.

Shinobi's other main gameplay innovation is the "Tate" system. Each enemy that appears has an associated icon on your screen, so if you're facing five enemies, there'll be five icons. When you kill an enemy, their icon gets set aflame. If you can kill all of the enemies quickly enough so that all of their icons are flaming at once, a short cinema will play wherein Hotsuma strikes a cool pose and all of the enemies fall to pieces. This not only makes tougher baddies go down more easily (just be sure to make them the final hit in the kill chain), it earns about three times the Yin with which to satiate Akujiki's hunger. Mastering Tate is essential to mastering the game (and defeating later bosses), especially if you desire a higher performance rating at the end of each stage.

Appearances Aren't Everything

Man: 1, Machine: 0

There's no denying that Hotsuma is one sleek, sexy ninja. He sports a crazily long red scarf (for lack of a better term) which billows majestically behind him whenever he moves. It's also very fun to make him run along walls, dash around enemies, and so forth. It all looks very nice, running at a blazing 60 frames per second. If all a game needed for greatness was smooth control and slick character design, then Shinobi would be king. Unfortunately that's not the case, and a number of factors contribute to bring Shinobi down from great to merely decent.